


Worth the Price

by VerdantVulpus



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Comfort, Fluff, Hurt, I fixed it, M/M, Milton Keynes, Misunderstandings, More angst, No Beta, No Sex, POV Crowley (Good Omens), Pining, Snake Crowley, Unrequited Love, churchyard, fight fight fight, talking it out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:49:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26550910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantVulpus/pseuds/VerdantVulpus
Summary: Crowley has never felt happier. He's survived the End (twice) and he's with Aziraphale. He's come through it all unscathed. He's free. What could go wrong?
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 81
Kudos: 198





	1. A Churchyard

**Author's Note:**

> Please forgive any typos. It has been a month.

There is nothing more dangerous to a demon than _hope_.

This is a point in favour of most demons who haven’t _ever_ felt hope and wouldn’t trust it if they did, but Crowley isn’t like most demons. He likes the world as it is (for the most part), likes humans as they were (for the most part), and really likes one particular angel (in every conceivable way). Crowley doesn’t just have hope. He's an optimist.

He’d wanted to save the world, and the world had been saved. He wanted Aziraphale to help him and the angel had agreed after only a moderate amount of cajoling. He’d wanted them both to survive and they had (more or less with some messy bits in between.) The execution of his plan had been inelegant. His plan had been largely flawed from the beginning. He’d lost faith in it half-way through when Aziraphale betrayed him at the bandstand but still there had been _hope_.

And here they are, laughing together on a park bench having tricked the Authorities into leaving them alone.

Here they are, toasting with expensive champagne, “to the world!” but really, “to you,” “to us”.

“To the world” was more succinct. More elegant. Meant the same thing.

Here they are, on the (brand new) old couch, in the back of the (brand new) old bookshop, breathing in the smell of ancient first editions that were also somehow brand new.

Here Crowley is, pouring more wine into the angel’s glass, as Aziraphale laughs and his thigh bumps against the demon’s as the angel gesticulates his wild retelling of events, the wine sloshing precariously yet never spilling.

Crowley watches it all avidly. He takes in the shining blue eyes (more green in the dim light, and haze of alcohol), the pink flushed cheeks, the plush lips damp with wine. The white-blonde curls, ruffled and messy and dashing. The too-many, too-soft, too-perfect layers of clothing so tragically out of date, worn down and worn in and worn _well_.

All of it is old and it is all brand new too. Crowley is the same though. He’s come through the apocalypse remarkably unscathed (he adjusts his glasses, swallows the raw hamburger feeling in his throat, the scent of smoke still clinging to the walls of his sinuses.) He swirls his own wine and drains his third glass, letting the tannins coat the hidden scratch from his screaming, letting it fill the cracks in his back teeth where he bit down in a rictus of furious imagination while the Bentley _didn’t_ burn with Hastur and the rest of the M25.

Unscathed. He has the Bentley back. He has Hell _off_ his back. He has quality alcohol in his favourite place on Earth. Aziraphale is looking at him, and seeing him. And the angel smiles and it’s so warm, so _blessed_ warm it fills Crowley up to the brim in sun-soaked cotton batting and soothes away all the _I don’t even like you_ s and the _There’s no our side_ s and the _it’s over_ s.

“You did it, Angel,” Crowley lifts his glass to Aziraphale in another toast. “You escaped Heaven, rode a silly mad woman across the London sky and stopped the end of the world!”

Aziraphale blushes. “Well. It wasn’t...nearly as simple as that, but thank you.”

“No No No!” Crowley won’t stand to hear any downplaying of his angel’s exploits. “You were...you were...You…” He’s stuck, takes another swig of wine to collect himself. “You were incredible! Amazing! I was jus’ sitting there, drunk off my arse at the end of days, and you were...FFFWoOOOoo!” he mimes what he imagines is a disembodied angel zipping down to earth in search of a body. Aziraphale’s snowy eyebrows meet above his nose in an expression of total confounded delight and he spits out some wine.

“Oh bother! Look at what you’ve done to me, you fiend!” Aziraphale cries, dabbing at the livid blotch of purple-red seeping into his waistcoat.

“You need...what’s it...soda?” Crowley tries to remember the protocol for stopping wine stains when demonic miracles are off the menu. They agreed to be cautious with miracles for a bit. “It’s soda, yeah?” he asks again. “Dyo have any? I can nip out and pinch a bottle from down the block.”

“There’s no need to steal it,” Aziraphale chides. “There’s money in the till.”

“I’ll get something for it,” Crowley declares, deciding it’s his solemn duty to rescue Aziraphale’s waistcoat. “Be back in a moment and we’ll get it sorted.”

The bodega down the block is used to Crowley’s shit by now. It knows to turn the security camera off when he strolls in, and to distract the owner with loud clanging in the pipes while the demon pilfers whatever he needs. Crowley gives the orange shop cat a couple extra pets and an ear scratch as he nicks a bottle of club soda, some stain remover and laundry detergent and a large bag of crisps.

He swaggers into the shop, whistling, and dumps his armload on the counter. “Angel, I’m home!” he sings, already ripping into the crisps. Aziraphale joins him and it’s Crowley’s turn to sputter and choke.

The angel has hung up his jacket and removed his bow tie, waistcoat and powder blue shirt and now is wearing nothing above the waist but his vest. Crowley’s unprepared for the full glory of Aziraphale’s forearms and the seductive pull of the hollow between pale collarbones.

“Fuck,” Crowley groans, swallowing dry shards of potato, salt, and an ancient desire.

“Oh,” Aziraphale lifts the bottle of stain remover. “This should do. Thank you.” Aziraphale glides off into the back to tend to his ailing vestments and Crowley floats after him on a happy pink cloud.

“Mighty careless of me,” Aziraphale is saying, fussing over the stain. “Perhaps we ought to switch to white wine until we learn if it is safe to use miracles again.” The angel looks up at him, grinning, and his eyes widen, his cheeks flush. He stares up at Crowley, somewhat confused, and the demon realizes he’s standing too close, looking too open.

But then again, they just survived the impossible, (twice!), and Crowley had come out of it unscathed. He had _hope_ . And he was drunk enough, happy enough, finally _finally_ free enough to act on it.

“Angel,” he whispers, savouring this moment, this perfection. His favourite place on Earth. His favourite being in the universe. He lets himself touch, gently— so carefully— the blonde curls above the angel’s ear and finds them exactly as whisper-soft as he’d always imagined. He traces a long finger along a strong jaw to a noble chin. He closes the distance between them, the six thousand years of it and Heaven and Hell, and the _hereditary enemies_ of it all, and presses his scale-dry lips against the wine-splashed silk of his angel’s waiting mouth.

Aziraphale makes a small sound of surprise and Crowley drives forward, fast, always fast, but he’s here and Aziraphale is here and the shop and the back room and the couch and the bottles of wine are all here and it is _Everything_. It is worth everything to be here now, like this. All the fear, and hiding, the tricks, the lies, the dangerous flirtations of The Arrangement. The thermos of Holy Water, the bucket and gloves and bubbling mess on the floor. The smoke still in his sinuses. The agony of eons of bleak loneliness.

Worth it.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale cries, breaking the kiss, breaking the moment, breaking free of the demon’s grasp. His blue-green eyes are wide (more grey than blue, sober and upset) and he lifts his immaculately manicured fingers to his lips as though Crowley had burned him.

All at once the oxygen is sucked out of the room.

“What are you doing?” Aziraphale whispers, and he looks afraid, betrayed.

“I…” Crowley has no answer ready.

“Crowley…” Aziraphale is turning away, walking away from him. “I think, perhaps, I’ve given you the wrong idea.”

“Fuck,” Crowley mutters, because _fuck!_

“Your friendship really is the most precious thing to me, my dear,” the angel continues, and Crowley finds himself backing away, increasing the distance, trying to undo what can’t be undone.

“I cherish you,” Aziraphale insists, finally turning back. “I do. However...I _can’t_ —”

“S’fine!” Crowley croaks. “S’my fault. Drunk. Too many...too much...toasting.”

“Are you certain?” Aziraphale asks, taking a hesitant step forward. “Only you seem —”

Crowley clears his throat and it’s louder than he means it to be. It’s a cough, or a cry, or a growl.

“Yeah yeah yeah,” he insists and he’s grabbing up the bottle again, drinking it down sans glass now because that’s how bloody carefree he is. No time for insipid little ‘manners’. He’s a demon, isn’t he?

“Been a long day, is all,” he laughs, and that’s too loud too. “Long long day. Long _two_ days, really.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale sighs. “I’m sorry. I’m just not—”

“Whole long week, come to think of it!” Crowley blurts out and he wants it to be loud now, to drown the angel out. Because he hadn’t survived all of this, unscathed, no less, to be reduced to ash by whatever Aziraphale was about to say. “Just a bloody awful long _decade!_ Sleep’s what I need, innit? Just bloody knackered from it all and...drunk and an idiot…” and now he’s really running out of steam. “Just... just a bloody idiot really.”

“I _am_ sorry, Crowley,” Aziraphale says again, clinging knuckle-white to his soiled waistcoat, twisting the fabric tight just as Crowley twists inside, wrapping night-black scales around his hope and strangling it dead.

____________________________

  
  
  


There are things that we don’t get to come back from.

A fall from Heaven is one. Once your wings tear up from the velocity of your fall and sulphur splashes up around you, you don’t get spread pristine white feathers ever again, no matter how your soul burns for soft pale things.

Most demons accept this by the time their shrieking throats close around molten brimstone. They pull themselves together again and they shamble along in whatever form they find themselves and they turn their scarred backs on anything that could remind them of what they’ve been denied, what they’ve lost.

Crowley didn’t learn. Crowley had _hope_.

Here he is in a penthouse in Mayfair, misting his shivering plants with sinister glee. The mister is slick with petroleum ether, the air is thick with it. It coats his sinuses.

He doesn’t need an accelerant to burn everything in this room, but he likes to spread the pain a bit. He likes them to know there’s no hope.

It’s theatre though, just for him. For _them_ , it is over instantaneously. It will _linger_ for him. He’d cultivated that potted olive tree for nearly a century, a cutting he’d taken from a tree near where he and Aziraphale had first slurped oysters eons before. He’d nursed it though shock and infestations and trial and error with soil and light. He’d grown it with devotion, never understanding it was a gift he meant to give someone someday. Now it was merely where the fire burned the hottest. 

Crowley moves through the rest of the flat like a ghost, taking his time collecting the few things he wanted. The stone angel wings from that bombed out church gets snapped into the back seat of the Bentley. It’s too heavy to carry and Crowley isn't going to be seen lurching his way out of here _dragging_ it behind him. So what if it was a waste of a miracle? He could risk it. This was important, after all, and the Authorities wouldn’t be ready to come for him yet. They’d still be scratching their heads, trying to figure out how he’d survived that tub of Holy Water. 

_Don’t think about it. Don’t picture Aziraphale in Hell, in your skin, in peril. Don’t think about it._

It all worked out in the end! He came out of it all unscathed. They’d be talking about the demon Crowley forever. He’s a bloody celebrity now! Can’t be seen lugging a fucking statue off a bloody lift. He has a reputation to think of.

Something shatters down the hall and there’s sirens in the distance. Best get a wiggle on if he doesn’t want a water cannon in the chest again. He yanks open the desk drawer and pulls out the lockbox inside. This. This is the only thing of importance in this whole overly-expensive flat. Box in hand, it’s easy to walk away and not look back.

Looking back gets you killed— turned into salt— and Crowley’s got too much to look forward to.

The Bentley screams through the night but it is dead silent inside the car for once. The stereo had been playing Queen’s Greatest Hits for decades no matter what, but tonight there was silence. Maybe whatever reality warping fuckery Adam had pulled together to remake his beloved Bentley didn’t include its usual peculiarity. Crowley turns the stereo on himself, turns the music up loud. It is some pop nonsense and he hates it so much. He turns it up louder.

_Don’t think. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about any of it._

It's fitting he finds the familiar road to Tadfield. He flies up the street where he’d hit the witch, where Aziraphale had healed her bike and Crowley had teased him. (He slams his foot down hard on the accelerator.) Here’s the stretch of road where Aziraphale told him he could sense love. Love all over the place! Love Love Love.

_Don’t think about it. Don’t think._

The church yard looms up ahead and it looks just like it did that night, eleven years ago, when he’d come to meet Hastur and Ligur and left with a basketful of baby Antichrist. He’d been terrified, isolated, alone. It was the beginning of the end. There hadn’t seemed any possible way he’d come out of all this but even then, Crowley had hope. He knew who he had to call, who he needed to see. He knew who he could get on his side.

_Don’t_.

Crowley kills the engine with a thought and steps out into the cool night, whistling tunelessly. He snaps, the boot springs open, and Crowley slings the spade over his narrow black shoulder with a flourish. The country air kisses his sharp teeth as he grins wickedly. Blasphemous to be smirking at a burial, but blasphemy was what he was about.

Digging is decidedly _not_ what he’s about, but he gets down to it anyway. He’s not above some physical labour when the plot calls for it, tromping around in the marshes moving construction markers, or tromping around London in scratchy hose, ensuring an audience for the opening of Hamlet.

_Don’t think._

Don’t think. Dig. It is hot now, hard to pry around the larger rocks, so he takes off his jacket and waistcoat and rolls up the sleeves of his grey henley, tries not to think of other, stronger, forearms. His scrawny bones don’t have strength but he has stamina, and Crowley will dig and pry and lift until the hole is deep and wide, even if it takes hours, which it does.

His muscles burn from the effort and he isn’t whistling anymore. He huffs out breath, his glasses pushed up on his head because they kept fogging up, the spade dragged behind him as he trudges back to the car.

“Fucking...sod... heavy bloody…” he grunts, heaving the statue out of the back seat. Now he lurches and staggers, inelegant, all elbows and knees and bowing under pressure. His reputation is safe though. No one can see him here. No one is looking for him.

He drops the stone wings into the hole, pleased with the sight of them, tilted, muddy, digging sharply into the chewed up earth underneath. Crowley rubs the sweat from his palms on the front of his thighs, huffs out a few more laboured breaths before plodding back to collect the lock box.

This is the important bit. This is the last bit.

He drops to his knees at the edge of the impromptu grave and holds the box on his lap a while. The sweat is cooling on his back and the breeze starts to nip his damp skin. Crowley sniffs and it’s loud, pulling the scent of soil and sweat into his mouth. He licks his dry lips, settles himself deeper into his knees. He feels the sharp edges of himself dig into the dirt as surely as his spade had, as the stone wing is now. Crowley is a sharp thing in the dirt. He’s pretended otherwise for too long. It feels good to get back to basics. It feels good.

The lock springs open and the lid springs open and it is much too dark to see anything inside, but Crowley can see perfectly. He’s made for the darkness. It is good to remember this.

Inside are trinkets, stupid little things of vital importance, saved, kept safe across an oceanic expanse of years. An oyster shell. A long white feather, A link of chain for the Bastille, a coin absurdly “pulled” from his ear, a cork from what he feared might be their last bottle of wine, passed back and forth on a bench not far from here while they waited for a bus.

And a key to a cottage Crowley had purchased just two years ago because he had hope.

Hope he’d take Aziraphale there one day and the angel would stay. Crowley would crowd him inside, hands twisted in bright curls, kisses falling like rain, like tears until they were both shivering in aftershocks, chests rising and falling, fingers woven together, the last part of their bodies to separate. 

Hope that Crowley would wrap Aziraphale in a blanket, stoke the fire for him, fetch his cocoa in that silly angel wing mug of his. He’d fall asleep, his head on a plush lap, idly spinning the gold ring on his finger, while Aziraphale flipped pages above him, the matching ring returning lovingly with the fingers scratching through his hair.

Hope was a beautiful, dangerous thing that convinced fools that trinkets were precious, that demons could be precious too. Crowley had been a fool once, twice, hundreds of times. Arguing across the ages, pulling the angel along, bending his ear, teasing, placating, reaching out over and over and over.

_Here angel. Another oyster?_

_Another drink?_

_Lunch?_

_We could come to an arrangement?_

_I’ve got this one._

_A demonic miracle of my own._

_Give you a lift?_

_We could go away together._

_Stay at my place, if you like._

  
  


It should be harder to bury hope but it is shockingly easy, in fact. Hardest part is digging the hole, really.

Once everything is filled in, Crowley uses a bit more vigor than he should to stamp it down firmly, jarring his sore knee and making him bite down on his lip to keep from giving voice to the pain. He nudges the empty lockbox with foot, centering it on the circle of disturbed earth like a gravestone. It's more of a marker than he deserves.

He limps back to the Bentley, aching, his knee, his back, his arms, his ribs. He rests his head on the steering wheel and closes his eyes for a while, but not too long. He can’t fall asleep yet.

There’s work to do. Property to sell. Insurance to collect (they’ll not be able to prove arson). He’ll find a new place with fewer memories and fewer plants and fewer pieces of art. Someplace cheap and small and uninviting. He won’t be there much anyway.

He’ll bury himself in a new interesting plot, keep busy so he doesn’t have to think about the wound, the hollow space where hope grew vibrant before he excised it like the cancer it turned out to be. Sleep until it stops seeping.

_Don’t think about how much it hurts_. 

He’ll saunter back into the shop. He’ll wave away the angel’s fussing concern. Crowley will invite him out for lunch and he will look at his own plate when Aziraphale moans around his fork. He won’t think about how much it hurts.

He’ll give the angel a lift back. _Here we are. No, I can’t come in. Best be on my way. I’ll be around. You have my number. I’ll be here if you call. I’ll always come if you call. Yes, of course I’m all right. Never better. Finally free. Happy as a pig in shit, I am._ _It doesn’t hurt at all._

He’ll mean it. It will be enough to keep an arrangement. To have a lunch date every few decades. He’s done well enough with that much for 6000 years. He’ll do even better now that he’s sure of the rules. Now that he knows how to stay in Aziraphale’s orbit.

Even if it is at a distance. Even if it hollows him out. Even if it never stops bleeding. 

It will be worth it.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the original ending of the fic. The next two chapters were added later to resolve the plot, but the fic can stand alone here as well.


	2. Milton Keynes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley tries to figure out how to rebuild after leaving London, but Aziraphale doesn't seem keen in leaving him alone to lick his wounds. Crowley is determined not to draw this out. He's not above making a run for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. You asked for it. Here's another chapter.

“Crowley.”

_The voice is irritating. Make it go away._

“Crowley, please.”

_Warm. Tired. Too tired. Sleep._

“Ffffff Uuhhhh…”

“Crowley?”

_Ignore it. Maybe it will go away. Tire itself out._

“Oh good lord. Are you asleep?!”

_Don’t listen. Sleep. Sleep is good. Slip back under and rest._

  
  
  


**< CAN ANYBODY FIND MEEEEEEE, SOMEBODY TO— >**

  
  
  


The stereo volume is infernally loud, jarring the demon to wakefulness like a shot of adrenaline to the heart.

“WHAAAaaaa!!” Crowley screams, peeling his face off the steering wheel and flailing madly at the Bentley’s dials, smacking the bloody thing off. 

“Worst bloody alarm clock ever, you are,” he complains, glaring at the console. “Nearly discorporated me that time and then where would you be? Scrap yard! They’d never get the stench of my rotted corpse out of the—”

“Crowley?”

Crowley shuts his mouth, cutting off his tirade after a startled squeak. The Bentley has never spoken to him before.

“Crowley, where the blazes are you? I’ve been searching everywhere for you, you troublesome serpent.”

“Er…” Crowley looks around him, confused. He’s still parked in the little church graveyard in the woods outside Tadfield. Sunlight is filtering through the trees, shining hard into the black car and heating it up like a nice comforting oven. He could bake cookies on the dash while he naps. Probably isn’t good for the corporation though so he opens the door and lets a rush of cool air into the cabin.

“Crowley!” 

“Hhhenggh wot?” Crowley snaps. “M’just waking up. Sod off.” Bloody car chose a rotten time to come into full sentience. Must have been Adam’s doing. “You know full well where we are, you bleeding poshed-up Volkswagen. Stop yelling at me!”

“What are you… Crowley, where _are_ you? I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for ages. I must have tried your mobile a hundred times. I’ve been worried sick.”

Crowley rubs his palms into his face trying to fully wake up. 

“Crowley, there was a fire. At your flat. Everything is gone.”

“Burned it,” Crowley agrees. 

“ _You_ burned it? Crowley! I’ve been in a blind panic for four days! You stormed out of my shop and the next thing I know your flat is in flames and you’re missing! I’ve been a wreck!”

_Oh shit. Not the Bentley then._

“Angel?”

“Of course, it’s me. Who else would I be?” 

Crowley hopes that wherever Aziraphale is he isn't able to see the embarrassed flush creeping over his face. 

“WEEeeell, I dunno. Jus’ sound like Freddy Mercury right now so…”

“Where the Heaven are you?”

“Wait wait wait wait wait…” Crowley’s head is pounding and he feels too many steps behind in all this at the moment. “A better question is what are you doing to my car?!”

“Well, you weren’t answering your telephone, Crowley,” Aziraphale answers techilly. “Your car wasn’t at your building so I took the chance and miracled a connection. It isn’t the most comfortable you know.”

“Not supposed to be doing miracles, Angel,” Crowley reminds him. Personally, Crowley doesn’t see the point in abstaining, but Aziraphale had been in a right flap about it after they’d switched back to their proper bodies. The angel wasn’t sure if they’re powers would be limited now that they’d quit/ been sacked. 

It probably means something that the angel’s wasting a miracle on a glorified phone call. Exactly _what_ it means, Crowley doesn't care to find out. Once bitten and all that.

There’s a beleaguered sigh over the stereo, then the voice slows, over-enunciating as if Aziraphale's speaking to a dim witted child. “ _Why_ would you run off and intentionally burn your flat?”

“Insurance money,” Crowley quips. “Had to move anyway. Hastur knows where I live. Left a bloody big puddle of demon goo on the floor too and there’s no getting that out, right? Best just burn it all down and be done with it. Wot’s got you in a snit about it, anyway? Victimless crime really. Not like you to be bent outta shape over a touch of fraud.”

“WHAT’S GOT ME IN A SNIT?” Aziraphale shouts and the demon winces, pressing his fingers against his throbbing temples. “Crowley! Tell me where you are this instant so I can _strangle you!_ ”

“Sssorry, Angel. I’m really not into that,” Crowley lies. He is. He definitely is.

He slams the door shut and starts the engine. Time to get moving. “Four days didja say? Blimey, I hadn’t even meant to fall asleep!” 

He needs to find a place to crash for a bit and check his messages. Four days! That’s going to look suspicious. He’s no doubt been called by the police and the insurance company. He needs to decide if the money is worth the bother or if he should just start fresh.

“Please, my dear,” Freddy-Aziraphale begs. “I’m worried about you.”

Crowley bites down on his tongue to keep from swearing a blue streak and ruining his future plans to play it cool. He just needs some time to get his feet back under him and sort out his bloody inconvenient and embarrassingly trite bout of heartbreak.

Sorry excuse for a demon, he is. He’s always known it, but he didn’t realize he was _this_ pathetic.

“Wotcha worried ‘bout, Angel?” he bites out finally, hoping he sounds lighter than he feels. “Got everything under control. Just gonna be gone a few weeks, couple months tops. Then maybe… _someday we can have a picnic or dine at the bloody fucking Ritz._ ”

He might have lost the plot at the end there.

“Crowley.”

“Forget it, Aziraphale,” he growls. “It’s fine. _I’m fine._ Everything is completely absolutely perfectly fine. I’ll see y’around.” 

He turns the stereo on and then off again several times, hoping that will break the connection. He sits on nails for fifteen minutes, half expecting the conversation to start up again, but there’s nothing but silence. Figuring he’s probably safe for a while at least, Crowley turns his attention toward choosing a destination. Cambridge would be a nice change of pace. It would soon be flooded with students, bright young minds ready for the twisting. Definite advantages to relocating to Cambridge. Might not be the best place to put his head down though, and Crowley definitely wants to sleep for at least another couple decades.

No. With this much heaviness and self-loathing he’s unquestioningly heading for Milton Keynes. Cambridge will probably still be there in the 2040s, although _who knows_ anymore.

He makes excellent time to MK, cutting up several other drivers and giving back twice the vitriol he earns in the process. He raids an Off-licence, finds the seediest motel the city has to offer and starts about his next two bits of business (checking messages and getting pissed) simultaneously. 

He deletes Aziraphale’s voicemails the instant he hears the angel’s plummy voice, ignoring the increased notes of distress in the first few syllables of each one before he cuts it off forever. He saves the messages from the insurance carrier until he’s able to make up his mind, tosses his mobile onto the bedside table, and then miracles himself a brand new bed. He looks down at his soil-stained clothing and muddy hands. No wonder the lad behind the counter looked so nervous. Crowley probably looks like he’s covering up a recent murder.

Shrugging to himself, Crowley tromps back out to the Bentley, vanishes the spade (might as well not draw attention to his recent bit of digging, just in case) and pulls out the leather overnight bag he keeps in the boot for emergencies. Crowley challenges himself to drink half the bottle he’s holding before he gets back to his room. It’s a near thing, but he’s victorious! 

“Go Team!” he cheers himself, toeing off his muddy boots and dropping the bag on the bed. A shower's in order and this time he can’t even be bothered to miracle the tub clean first. He turns the water on as hot as it will go, but isn’t surprised when it's still barely lukewarm. Hoping it will continue to heat up, Crowley undresses and steps under the disappointing spray. Still, the water is clean and he scrubs the dirt from his skin mechanically, head bowed, watching the grime sluice down the pale length of his body and swirl around his feet. 

It’s still there though. The filth. He’ll never really get rid of it. It’s been there since he fell. He could scrub his surface clean, mask the brimstone with expensive cologne, cover his boney, freckle-pocked body with sharp, dark clothing and hide his hideous eyes behind sharp, dark glasses, but he’s only fooling the mortals. 

Anyone with any supernatural ability would see through his mirage immediately. He’s a demon, a snake, a creature of Hell. Even if he never sees Hell again, he’ll still be caked with the stain of the damned. 

A walking contamination. 

And he thought he could kiss an angel!

“Shit,” he hisses and scrubs his skin harder. “Shit Shit Shit.” What a bloody stupid thing to do. Ruined it! He ruined it! He could have played it cool, spent years, decades, centuries even, drinking wine and dozing on the couch in the back of the bookshop. He could have been content laughing and teasing and bickering with the angel. He could have. He would have.

And now he won’t.

“Shit,” he moans again, heart thudding heavily, his blood turning to molasses. The water is rapidly cooling off now. Crowley snarls and punches the gaudy brown tilework. Something cracks, and it isn’t the tile. Crowley yelps and recoils instinctively as if another attack is forthcoming. The wall seems content to leave him be. Crowley isn’t drunk enough for this.

Ah, not _yet_. Another challenge accepted. 

The water is finally too cold to stay under the spray a moment longer. Crowley mutters a curse on the whole of Milton Keynes but the city has heard worse and isn’t worried. Crowley turns off the water, and grabs up the bottle first, and then a towel (priorities being what they are). 

Crowley drips on the floor, swishing the whiskey around his teeth, gargling it a bit before swallowing. He has a travel toothbrush in his bag but that's all the way in the other room. Might as well be an ocean away. Crowley glares at his reflection in the mirror, slitted citrine eyes glaring back at him. Skinny, gaunt, all sharp bones and too much colour. Red.

Too much red.

Red hair sticking up in short errant spikes after a vicious toweling. Red curls around an artfully manscaped red cock (an exercise in pridefulness that, or was his pubic hair a victim of hope too?) Red rimmed eyes now. He hadn't been crying. He wouldn't do that to himself. Just tired maybe? Or could be leftover irritation from all the smoke.

He snatches his glasses off the side of the sink and rinses them under the faucet, scrubbing a spot of mud away with his thumb. He slips them back on as soon as they're dry, tired of his eyes already. 

Much better.

He smirks at himself in the mirror now, sliding into a malicious grin, sharp incisors shining in the yellow light from above the sink. Now he looks like a proper demon. No more wallowing. Time to drink.

Crowley stretches, cracking his neck, slinging the towel loosely around his thin hips before returning to the bedroom for a clean change of clothes and more alcohol. 

Except, nope! Why did he think he could catch a break? 

"Aw, C'mon!" he blares in outrage. 

Aziraphale is waiting just outside the bathroom door, arms folded across his chest, blue eyes blazing, clearly ready to deliver a tongue-lashing. Aziraphale puffs up, opens his mouth to start— 

"How'd you find me?" Crowley demands interrupting the angel, knowing he can't pass up an opportunity to gloat and Crowley needs time to think.

"I _know you_ , Crowley," Aziraphale chides. "Didn't take long to figure out you'd come to Milton Keynes. You had a hand in creating it, and you detest it. I looked up the lowest rated motel and here you are."

" _Y_ _ou_ looked it up?" Crowley is suspicious.

"Oh, fine," Aziraphale gives an exasperated sigh. " Anathema looked it up for me. What does that matter?"

Crowley shrugs, stalking past the annoyed angel. "I'd tell you that you're clever but your failure to grasp the fact that I want to be left alone says otherwise."

"Too bad," Aziraphale snaps. "I know better than to trust you to be on your own in this state."

"Wot's that s'pose to mean?" Crowley growls, offended. "Didja forget that I've been on my own for most of my bloody existence? Not like _you'd_ be ‘round long. Ffft... _Fraternizing._ Wouldn't wanna get my filth all over your pretty clothes."

"Perhaps, though I really must say they've come a long way with stain removers, in recent years," Aziraphale replies snidely, indicating his unblemished waistcoat.

'Oh, well played," Crowley sneers.

"I won't take the bait, Crowley," Aziraphale states firmly. "I hate it when you’re like this. You get yourself all bogged down in horrible thoughts and you self-destruct. I won't stand for it. Certainly not _now._ " 

Crowley would throw a bottle at him if he were in the mood to waste the whiskey. Of all the stupid things to say! 

"So sorry this is _inconvenient_ for you, Angel, but I've got good news! My destruction isn't any of your flaming concern!" He shouts, furious. Stupid bloody idiot of an angel. Made himself crystal clear back in London. Why does he insist on rubbing it in? Why can’t he let Crowley lick his wounds in peace?

Aziraphale is crossing his arms again, angrily glaring at the demon as if this was all _his_ fault... Which it is, really. He'll _never_ forgive himself for kissing Aziraphale. So bloody stupid.

Welp. Here they are, and a proper demon like him isn't going to just admit blame so he's going to have to have this fight.

"Get dressed," Aziraphale orders him, his voice quiet, dark, authoritative. "We're going back to London. You'll stay at mine."

He just says it. Just bloody says _that,_ like it's going to happen. Like it’s remotely _possible_ after what Crowley's done.

"No," Crowley replies because he has to. He has to rebel against an angel talking to him in _that_ voice. " _You_ go back to London. I'm stayin' put."

Crowley does miracle his clothing on though because he knows there's going to be a row and he's _not_ going to argue naked.

"I'm not leaving here without you, you damnable, intransigent snake!"

Crowley laughs bitterly. "You plan on using force, Angel? Cause I'm feeling super intransigent right now."

" _Y_ _es,_ " Aziraphale states firmly.

Crowley staggers slightly, suddenly thinking maybe he better sober up. He grits his teeth and thinks the alcohol back into the bottle, wincing at the wretched clarity in his brain.

"I'll warn you once, Angel," Crowley snarls. "You come near me and I _will_ bite you. Don't know exactly what my venom will do t'you but I doubt you'll like it."

"It won’t do much, I expect," Aziraphale counters, "considering you _haven't_ any venom, you dolt."

Not good. No one’s supposed to know that.

"You're a constrictor, Crowley," Aziraphale continues, taking a threatening step closer to the demon. "And if you intend to squeeze the life from me, you're welcome to try."

How the fuck…?

"Oh, my dear," Aziraphale smiles then, laughter in his pale eyes. "The look on your face. _You told me,_ you ridiculous creature. Over a hundred years ago!"

"Seriously?" Crowley whines. "Well, shit."

"Indeed," Aziraphale agrees. "Shall we then?" He gestures to the door. 

Smug. Clever, Snide, Beautiful, Cruel.

Crowley eyes the angel warily and knows that he won't survive whatever Aziraphale is planning. He crossed the Rubicon when he pressed his infernal lips to something holy. He burned his life to ash in that very moment. Nothing waits for him in London now except Aziraphale's judgement. He won't survive it. 

And Crowley is a survivor.

"Stop," he shouts, and Aziraphale freezes. It’s only for a moment, but it’s time enough for Crowley to back up a safe distance and wreath his hand in Hellfire.

"Crowley!" Aziraphale is the one to back away now, eyes wide. "Hellfire? Really!"

"Go home, Aziraphale!" Crowley snarls, baring his fangs, making a small arc with the fire, a threat that flares nowhere _near_ risking the angel.

He'd never burn Aziraphale, but that’s a dangerous truth he'd do well to hide from now on. 

"This is how it’s to be then?" Aziraphale sighs, and he looks sad. He looks bloody _hurt_.

"Wot, do you need a bandstand for this?" Crowley seethes. "Shoulda listened to you then, eh? ‘An angel and a demon’. ‘Opposite sides’ and all that. You don' get to pretend to be hurting now!"

"Last chance, Crowley," Aziraphale says.

Crowley is dying. He can't breathe. It hurts too much. It's killing him.

"Leave," he growls.

"No," Aziraphale answers. His halo burns behind him and even though the glasses Crowley's forced to squint against that brightness. 

"The fuck are you doing?!" he shouts, heart in his throat, fire spreading across his shoulders to both hands now, responding to his nerves.

Great white wings burst from the angel's back. Blue eyes blazed with holy fury.

Crowley snarls in response, his night-black wings flowing out behind him, sucking in the surrounding light, casting menacing shadows across the walls. He feels his fangs grow. Dark claws shine under the Hellfire.

Aziraphale squares his shoulders, assumes a warrior's stance.

"Very well, Serpent," says the Guardian of The Eastern Gate. "Let's fight."

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright Folks! It's a rumble twixt the Occult and the Ethereal! Place your bets!


	3. Soho

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Communication happens. Its revolutionary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing in the present tense is tricky AF. I'll be tweaking this fic forever. Please forgive any typos. I'm a sleepy twit today/ everyday.
> 
> Please enjoy some Crowley sounds.

There’s a sound. A low muffled sound.

No.

A vibration. Footsteps? A voice?

“Ng,” Crowley grunts, more out of reflex than intention. He opens an eye, but the eye doesn’t open.

Oh. right. No eyelids.

He tells his eye to see. There’s a dim light bouncing off close dark brown walls. Right, not helpful. Better get the other eye in on this action. Both eyes are working now and the picture isn’t any clearer.

He flicks his tongue out, tasting the air. Salt, yeast, butter, crust and crumb and memory…

_Aziraphale spreads a pad of butter over his toast, humming contentedly. He lifts his hand idly to his mouth and licks the errant butter off his thumb._

Bread?

Crowley winces, stretches, hurts!

“Fuckin’ ow,” he groans, slithering around in a coil, trying to sort out the nature of his injury. Finally he decides that he’s just bloody cursed and his body has finally opted to painfully disintegrate. The world is too small. No...the space is too small. He’s too small? Hard to think. Head hurts. Eyes hurt. Body hurts. Scales hurt.

Crowley is tired and he hurts and it’s all terribly unfair. He flicks his tongue despondently and sulks.

Then he remembers and winces again. He and the angel fought.

It...did not go well for Crowley.

“Ng!” he grunts again, petulant this time. The walls are made of smooth wood, and they’re too close. He can’t properly uncoil, making nosing about for a weak spot difficult.

“Ow. Nnngg…” he grunts again, sliding along the seam where it’s lightest, trying to flick his tongue through the crack at the bottom of the FUCKING BREAD BOX! It sinks in all at once what must have happened. He lost the fight, reverted to snake form and Aziraphale had brought him back to the shop and snookered him in his bleeding breadbox! Talk about bloody salt to injury.

“Lemme out!” He yowls, humiliated.

“If I let you out will you listen to reason?” Aziraphale asks calmly, apparently just on the other side of the box. Crowley considers his answer carefully.

“Yesss,” he says, decisively.

“Will you really?”

“Definitely,” Crowley promises.

“Only you’re using that tone you have when you lie,” Aziraphale’s voice says dryly and Crowley has to take another moment to consider that he apparently has _a tell._

“Lemme out!”

“You need to promise me that you won’t run off again,” Aziraphale chides and Crowley hisses, nosing at the crack in the box.”

“Sssure, yeah,” Crowley agrees. “Whatever. Promissse.”

“You’re _lying_ though,” Aziraphale sighs and Crowley slides around another full rotation of the box hissing in indignation.

“You can’t leave me in here fffforever, angel,” Crowley reasons.

“Well, it certainly isn’t my _preference_ ,” Aziraphale admits, but Crowley can hear the smirk, the inner bastard coming through. “But if needs must…”

“I can’t believe you put me in a breadbox!” Crowley shouts, because that’s honestly bothering him more than anything else at the moment. Makes no sense, even to him. Plenty is bothering him, lots are arguably of higher importance but right now Crowley is stuck in a breadbox and there are crumbs in here and it _chafes_ in every conceivable way.

“It isn’t as though the bookshop has come equipped with emergency snake storage, Crowley,” Aziraphale retorts, giving the top of the box a little pat. Crowley tips his head up at the sound, flicking his tongue again.

“You’re enjoying this,” he accuses the angel. He can hear the smile in the bastard’s voice.

“Not at all!” There’s a pause. “Well... You _did_ attack me.”

“ _You_ started it! And then you ssstarted it again!” Crowley hisses. “You wouldn’t _stop_ starting it!”

Light explodes around Crowley as the box snaps open. Crowley instinctively hides his head under his coil until his sensitive eyes adjust.

“Bassstard,” he mutters, peeking out finally. He’s in Aziraphale’s kitchen, in the flat above the shop. The angel is sitting on a stool with an elbow resting on the worktop. He watches Crowley with a look of fond exhaustion.

The demon slides out of the breadbox, eyeing his opponent warily before he drops off the counter only to fall onto the floor in a vaguely human-shaped pile of gangly limbs.

“I’m sorry it came to this, dear,” Aziraphale smiles sadly at him. He seems genuine. “You must be quite sore.”

“M’not,” Crowley lies, testing out his weakened powers on summoning a pair of glasses. He snaps twice and they appear on the second try. He slips them on and scowls.

“Well, that’s good then,” Aziraphale responds after another pause, clearly unconvinced. “You really gave me a terrible fright, you know, Crowley.”

“Nh?”

Aziraphale slides off the stool and kneels before the series of various triangles Crowley has folded himself into. Crowley tries to rapidly unfold in a somewhat away direction, but only manages to budge up hard against the kitchen cupboards. His eyes dart around the room, seeking another escape, but Aziraphale takes the demon’s hands and holds them. Crowley’s corporation immediately suffers total equipment failure and he thumps back down on his arse, staring at where their hands are joined..

“Mmn,” he says.

“Nnmh,” he tries again.

Aziraphale saves him by speaking actual words.

“You ran off, Crowley,” the angel murmures, squeezing his long bony fingers in warm soft hands. “I couldn’t reach you, and then I saw that your flat had burned down.” Tears threaten to spill from wide pale eyes. “I was terrified.”

Crowley hisses again, but this time it’s from a pang of guilt. In hindsight, the flat fire might have been _slightly_ over the top.

“Yyeeaaaap. I shoulda warned you ‘bout the fire,” Crowley admits. “Just that it was kinda a spur of the moment thing and it was late…” he trails off weakly, looking down at his hands which Aziraphale is _still holding._

_Are we holding hands? No. He’s holding my hands. My hands aren’t holding anything. They’re just being hands. What do hands do? Should they be doing something?_

Too much! Suddenly hard to breathe! Crowley grimaces nervously and gently pulls his hands away from the angel.

“What was your plan?” Aziraphale asks, releasing Crowley’s hands so the demon can tuck them into his armpits. “Were you just going to leave?”

“Was gonna call in a couple weeks, _actually_ ,” Crowley snaps, and he’s got his bite back finally because that actually really had been the plan. “Was gonna invite you to lunch once I found a new place.”

“Really,” Aziraphale looks suspicious, but Crowley glares back confidently. The angel leans slightly closer, looking at him as if he can see Crowley’s eyes through the dark glasses and read some kind of truth in them.

_Shit fuck bollocks please don’t let that be what’s happening._

“So you invite me out to lunch,” Aziraphale draws the statement out like taffy. “And _then_ what?”

Crowley starts to sweat a little. Aziraphale is much too close, and all of this is much too close to exposing things that Crowley can’t risk being too close to.

“WEeeellll…” he winces… “I didn’t have that all cemented in yet, did I? Not like I’ve got my calendar sorted for the next few decades but I thought I might— “

“Leg it to some secluded hiding spot and sleep for the rest of the century?” Aziraphale guesses. He glares at Crowley,

“Hhhhhhhhhheeeeeh. Couple decades,” he corrects with a shrug. “So what?”

“Right. So. Just so I have this clear,” Aziraphale reiterates, and his voice has that shirty chill in it that always gets under Crowley’s skin. “We thwart the powers that be, declare ourselves to be on our own side. Then as we’re celebrating you decide to snog me, throw a strop, burn down your flat, vanish for days with no word. All while you supposedly intend to invite me to lunch before disappearing again for decades. Is that correct?”

“Didn’t decide,” Crowley mutters, petulantly. “Had to, din’ I? It’s our thing, Angel. We’re never in the same place too long. You always hafta go, or I do. You’ve got the shop and… right. Well…” Crowley’s getting confused, and Aziraphale’s making that face he does when he finds typos in the newspaper.

“Look. I cocked it up so I left, all right?,” Crowley snarls, throwing up his hands in defeat. “What, you’re surprised and offended? You thought I was gonna stay where I’m not wanted?”

“So because I’m not ready _to have sex with you_ , I don’t want you around _at all?!_ ” Aziraphale shouts back.

“Ngk,” Crowley’s brain short circuits, wires sparking, gears stutter and jam.

“Don’t you _‘ngk’_ me, Crowley!” Aziraphale snaps. “You know damn well that it takes me time to adjust to things and we only _just_ separated from our old positions. I’d hoped for a _little time to think._ You’re always rushing ahead and dragging me along before I’m ready! Well, I won’t be bullied into this. It’s too important. You’re too important.”

Crowley stares at him. Aziraphale is making a lot of loud sounds with his mouth. It’s honestly a lot. Crowley is so bloody lost.

“ng umm… I don’t think...wait,” he holds up a finger, squeezes his eyes shut, tries to make sense of what he’s just heard. But what he thinks he heard is Aziraphale saying the word “sex” which is too weird to contemplate in this context and Crowley needs to go lie down right now.

He staggers out of his triangles and oozes across the kitchen floor, staring up at the ceiling which is much easier to look at right now than the angry, shouting angel.

“Did you say… _sex_!?”

“I’ve been on earth as long as you have, Crowley,” Aziraphale growls. “I know what sex is.”

Crowley desperately wants more information (Data data data. Exactly what does the angel know about this subject and how does he know it?) but their stories aren’t matching up and Crowley’s starting to see how that’s a problem.

“You thought I was trying to _seduce_ you?” Crowley exclaims at the ceiling.

“Weren’t you?” Aziraphale grumbles.

_Was he?_

Crowley tries to remember. For centuries ‘Seducing Aziraphale’ had merely been a fun mental exercise, occasional mastabatory fodder, but generally just idle speculation to relieve some of the soul crushing boredom between jobs. He’s never actually acted on it though, has he?

No. Maybe the odd bit of flirting that always soared far over the angel’s curly head. Something he could blame on demonic irreverence if Aziraphale ever actually cottoned on.

But _that_ night?

“It was just a _kiss_ , wosn’t it?” Crowley asks, because now he’s no longer sure. He had been exhausted and more than a little drunk. Had he done something worse than he remembered? Had he groped the angel? Oh, Satan’s sparking balls! _Had he talked about his feelings!?_

“I wouldn’t say it was ‘just’ a kiss,” Aziraphale huffs indignantly while Crowley expires from dread on the floor beside him. “We’ve kissed in greeting plenty of times in the past when it was the custom, but this was…” Aziraphale blushes and Crowley continues to languish on the floor. “I mean… clearly there was intent behind it.”

The languishing abruptly stops. Crowley props himself up on his elbows and stares at the angel, incredulous.

“Now, wait a minute,” he jeers. “How’d you know what I was or wasn’t intending?” Aziraphale blushes even more, flustered, and Crowley pulls himself all the way up to sitting. “Making a bit of an assumption there, aren’t you, Angel?”

“Well, what _was_ your intention then?” Aziraphale demands..

“To kiss you,” Crowley answers dryly. “Didn’t plan it at all. I was just happy for the first time in yonks, drunk off my arse, and finally thought maybe I could... Ng— Nnnnnnope!” he wags his finger at the angel, determined not to venture too close to _Too Close_. “No. I wasn’t trying to seduce you. It was a kiss, and you rejected me, and thas’ fine. I get it. But don’ pretend that I tried to seduce you if alls I did was a little ki— “

“Then why did you run off like that?” Aziraphale volleys back. “If all it was was a meaningless kiss then why vanish to Milton Keynes? Why summon hellfire over simply coming back to London to talk to me?!”

“Because it _wasn’t_ meaningless, you titanic fucking idiot!” Crowley rants. “But it wasn’t a _seduction_ either. I wasn’t trying to _tempt_ you. I just...shit! I just… I thought it would be safe and I…”

Crowley’s rage burns itself out so quickly lately. He gets this burst of hot steam, feels the sharp edge of his wounds and lashes out, but he’s lost his stamina. Used it all up digging a grave for the life he can’t have. The steam turns to fog and Crowley slumps back, mops a palm over his face, heaves himself off the floor.

His body aches from trying to fight the angel. His heart hurts from having to fight the angel. Needs must, though. There are things you just can’t come back from.

“I wish you’d just be honest with me,” Aziraphale laments. It's barely above a whisper.

“I never lied to you about anything important,” Crowley confesses, and he offers Aziraphale a hand up off the floor. The angel takes it gratefully, comes to standing gracefully. He shines, even when he’s so achingly serious. Crowley just slouches.

“M’sorry ‘bout the fire,” he tells him, and he means it. “That was...maybe…”

“Cruel?” Aziraphale offers helpfully.

“Dramatic,” Crowley corrects. “Maybe cruel to the plants, but they had it coming. Wasn’t expecting you to find out, really.”

“You assumed you could disappear the night we tricked Heaven and Hell, and I wouldn’t at the very least swing by your building?” Aziraphale snorts.

“Yeah.”

The angel looks at Crowley with utter dissatisfaction. “You know, I have half a mind to put you back in that breadbox,” he threatens.

“Whyyy?” Crowley whines. He really doesn’t like the breadbox. “Look, I don’ know what you want from me here, Angel. We’re just talkin’ in circles and it’s not going anywhere.”

“Then answer me this. Honestly,” Aziraphale takes Crowley’s hand again and the same cognitive upset occurs. _What are hands?_ Hands are too complicated. Crowley ignores the hands and tries to focus on the rest of Aziraphale. “What do you want to happen between us?”

All the air goes out of Crowley and his lungs forget how to reinflate for a moment. “Oh, is that all?” he wheezes. “Thought you were gonna somethin’ complicated.”

“Do you want us to go our separate ways, Crowley?” Aziraphale asks seriously, ignoring the demon’s pathetic deflection. The soft hand squeezes Crowley’s slightly. He briefly wonders what that means. Should he squeeze back? Should he pull away? He doesn’t want to pull away. Is that wrong? Is he ruining it again?

“I don’t,” Crowley admits finally. “I don’t want that. I just thought… I know I’m a lot and...you’re…” Crowley’s rambling again, and Aziraphale should really be interrupting him with something cutting right now but instead he’s just looking at him with lovely eyes and holding his hand and Crowley can’t seem to shut up.

“I’m not clever like you,” he admits. “But I can put some things together. The bandstand, and all the times I’ve offered to take you somewhere and you’d say no. And I shouldn’t have kissed you. I know that. That was stupid. I was stupid. I know you don’t feel the same, and it’s fine, but I should have _remembered_ that I can’t…”

“Stop,” Aziraphale tells him softly..

“Ugh. Thank you!” Crowley groans in relief, bowing his head in embarrassment.

“I don’t want you to leave either,” Aziraphale tells him, gently lifting his chin.

_Face. He’s touching my face._

Crowley can feel his cheeks flush and tries to look away again but Aziraphale won’t allow it.

“Please stay,” he says, and Crowley nods because his voice doesn’t work anymore. Aziraphale smiles and it's this big, beaming, ridiculous smile that he does when he’s happy and he’s doing it now. Crowley knows he’s blushing and he hates himself for it but he can’t stop and he can’t look away from that beatific smile and he’s trapped like this now.

“All right, Crowley?” Aziraphale chuckles, noting his distress.

“I don’t know what to do with my hands!” Crowley blurts out helplessly and Aziraphale laughs in earnest then. Crowley is shocked that the angel would be so rude but then he’s being enveloped in strong arms and held against a warm chest and feels soft blond curls against his cheek and he’s okay, that’s all right then.

It’s a hug. Apparently they hug now. Just two beings that hug like it’s not even weird.

“I love you,” Aziraphale whispers. Something inside Crowley cracks, bleeds out, dies. In its absence, Crowley feels...much better.

“Then, you’ll tell me what to do with my hands?” he whispers back, because he’s 36% sure he’s hallucinating all of this. Aziraphale laughs again and Crowley can’t handle how badly he needs to hear that sound everyday. His survival is now inextricably tied to Aziraphale’s happiness.

“Here,” the angel hums, taking Crowley’s useless hands and wrapping Crowley’s black clad arms around a warm, lovely waist. “Better?” he asks, smiling.

“Much, yeah,” Crowley holds Aziraphale stiffly, terrified of doing the wrong thing. “So… what happens now?” he needs to know. “I’m staying in London for the time being? I can find a new flat but might take a few weeks. Also...do we hug now or is this a one time thing? I just wanna understand the rules.”

“You don’t like rules,” Aziraphale reminds him with a fond smile.

“M’a demon, of course I don’t like rules,” Crowley rebukes because that isn’t at all the point. “Still follow the important ones though, don’ I? Don’t let the mortals know about how it all works. Don’t lick the walls. Don’t drop babies. I can act with restraint on occasion, you know.”

“I know,” Aziraphale smiles. “You’re welcome to stay here until you find suitable accommodations, although it might be nice to have you for even longer. And, yes. I think maybe we hug now, if you’re amenable to that.”

“Yep! Like the sound of all of that,” Crowley agrees instantly, because this is much better than he was ever expecting. “Ok. Staying here, hugs are ok. No kissing. No breadbox, See what happens…?”

“We can,” Aziraphale says after a pause. It sounds like he’s offering something, but Crowley doesn’t follow so he twists his face into a question mark and marvels at the fetching blush of pink across Aziraphale’s cheeks. “We can kiss, if you like. I didn’t mind the kiss, Crowley. I was just not at all ready for what comes after it.”

“Nothing comes after it, you git!” Crowley snaps. “Nothing ever happens unless we both want it to. Honestly, Angel! What have you been reading?”

“Well...that’s a relief,” Aziraphale smirks. “It’s just that you have this tendency to over-react to boundaries and flounce off to hide in Milton Keynes or some such place.

“Ffffflounce? How dare you,” Crowley hisses and gently takes the angel’s shoulders and backs him against the worktop. “I don’t flounce.” he growls against a soft neck as Aziraphale holds him close again.

“I stand corrected,” Aziraphale sighs. Plush lips skirt gently over Crowley’s cheek, and the demon pulls back slightly, surprised. He stares into shining blue-grey eyes, (more blue than grey. Happy, excited.) and now Crowley’s only 23% sure he’s hallucinating.

Ethereal lips meet occult again, soft, tense, light, barely a hint of pressure and Crowley holds his breath, eyes shut, waiting for the world to end. They press again, hold, relax and warm, lift to meet again. The world doesn’t end. The kiss doesn’t end either, but at some point it’ll have to.

There’s so much work to do. There’s property to buy. Insurance people to dodge. He won’t get the dosh. (Call it the cost of being overdramatic. Crowley has ample budget for that.)

They’ll have to make their way back to Milton Keynes to rescue the Bentley, maybe make a couple stops on the way back to London to have that picnic, see what it feels like to kiss on the grass. Maybe Crowley can learn how hands work, carefully of course, with direction.

He’ll have to find a new evil plot to bury himself in, some low key mischief to keep him entertained while Aziraphale minds the shop. Maybe pick up some new plants to terrorize.

Work. Undeniably there will be work, because Aziraphale has his boundaries, Crowley’s piss at seeing them, and they’ll bicker and misunderstand each other and Aziraphale will get monstrously righteous, and Crowley will assume the worst. Maybe books will get thrown or plates will get broken and angry words will be said. Then the work will happen and Crowley might only be 14% sure he’s hallucinating.

Aziraphale might change his mind someday about sex. He might surprise Crowley some night in bed, leave him gasping and sated, or screaming and begging, and yes yes yes, that would be fantastic, yes please _that_.

He might not too, and Crowley would be unbelievably happy to feed/sink the ducks and hold hands and kiss under the cherry trees and fall asleep on the couch while the angel reads. He’d still gladly do the work.

It would be worth any price to have just that.

It could all grow into something else entirely too. A home together, wrapped up in blankets and fireplaces and vegetable gardens and wedding rings. Crowley hopes so.

Hope. He thought he’d buried that. Sly bugger.

Crowley kisses Aziraphale fully, deliberately, tastes his skin, smells his hair, counts his teeth with a mildly forked tongue. Aziraphale kisses Crowley completely, pressing his lips against the demon’s chin, jaw, cheeks. He removes the dark glasses and presses kisses against the hawkish nose, above the wide golden eyes. It might be minutes or hours or days they spend locked in arms and lips and hope, but Crowley pries them apart eventually. There’s work to do.

A car to save, reservations to make, spirits to stock up on, a life to make.

A key to unbury.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for joining me on this ride.

**Author's Note:**

> September is hard, y'all.


End file.
